^ Yea, I first had the same thought but in fact, Confluence is a large masterplan, really nothing suburban. Everytime I take a quick look at it, I get lost (I'm a Paris kid, not a Lyonnais at all) and this mall actually doesn't appear anything much more than a detail in there. I mean, eventually, it shouldn't even really affect the street life of the overall area. What we've got above is a 1st phase....
Here's the outline of a significant block coming next.

Showing flows from the block to the outside and reciprocally.

Use of components:

Résidentiel : accession à prix maîtrisé => residential for sale, prices regulated by the local authorities (yet another thing more or less liberticide of the French socialists currently in office, I guess...).Résidentiel : logement social => residential, social housing (for rent, regulated by the local authorities).Résidentiel : logement => residential for sale, market rate.Commerce => retailActivité - service => services to the local community. For instance, nurseries for babies too young to go to a nursery school, which is essential to let young parents work with their minds at peace.Tertiaire => offices

Now below is what they call "connections to the smart city". Uh, don't ask me, it just sounds like marketing terms of the urban planner to me right now.

What could that be? some sort of system to manage or measure the overall energy consumption of the neighborhood? Heck, I just don't know.

All these above are hosted on imageshack.us, thanks to the members of SSC for that. They'd be cool to visit us on here, though...

This is the only known rendering I found. It's the tallest building at the center of the block.

The natural setting seems pretty perfect to build something there. There used to be industry, but it widely had turned into brownfields. So came that masterplan covering 150 ha (370 acres) of land. I think it's currently one of the largest in entire France in a dense environment, along with Paris Rive Gauche that's just as large, and Marseille's Euroméditerranée that covers an even twice larger area.

However, it's not all blank brownfields to entirely redevelop from scratch, for the Sainte-Blandine area includes some fabric developed from the 19th century yet.

What you see a couple of posts above is a bit of les Docks first. The crazy green building will host Euronews's headquarters. The orange one is mainly offices too, hosting the headquarters of developer Groupe Cardinal and a bit of retail like a restaurant. As for the rest, it's all in Denuzière that's where the most significant was built so far.

The area they call Phase II might include some 15-and-more-story buildings, which is what the masterplan still lacks, some taller things as landmarks. Apart from that, it seems fine, definitely some of the best pieces of contemporary urban planning you get in France right now. Although details remain confusing to me because of the size, I've been enjoying watching this, hoping the Lyonnais get more highrises. They need some.

More informations on the Confluence official site, either in French or in English.

A couple of highrises that should be going up sometime soon in the district of la Part-Dieu.

These 2 plain boxes are stuck to the train station.

The tallest is offices, 170m (557 ft) tall. The smaller is a 460-room hotel. The 2 buildings are connected by a little mall.
They called that program "Two Lyon", an utterly boring name to make Quebec laugh their French-speaking ass off.

This is called Silex, that sounds better.

They posted several options for the design on their thread, but if I followed well, that's what will be implemented.
It includes the renovation of the building below and a couple of new components.

The tallest bit of it is 135m (443 ft) tall.

There's another project called EVA, but it's bigger (220m) and since nothing's booming in France (we'll soon be the last still stuck in a slower economy lol), they'll have to be real patient for that one.

__________________
psst... A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. (John 13:34)
I like bass. Give me some.

Euronews's new HQ is completed on les Docks in Confluence. Pics by gege who's on both pss-archi and SSC.

Although we can't see on pictures here, it clearly works as a pair with Groupe Cardinal's orange HQ seen a couple of posts above. No matter what you think about it, it also works as some emblematic HQ. Myself, I probably won't forget which corporations are in there.

__________________
psst... A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. (John 13:34)
I like bass. Give me some.

Silex is under construction in la Part-Dieu. It will be rising soon as shown by villeman.

See post #75 for renderings, it's tall enough to enhance the district skyline.
There are more renderings, though.

The crown takes quite a bit of the whole thing, increasing its height, eh. It's actually 23-floor tall, which is yet not bad.

They don't really know what's up about Two Lyon. The project might be scaled-down by Vinci to a single 140m tower, cause they'd be working on another highrise elsewhere, a couple of hundred yards away from the Part-Dieu station, but that's only some hearsay.

NIMBYism doesn't seem the awful issue it is in Greater Paris over there; their problem is mainly how to draw more and more businesses to fill in a bunch of new highrises.

__________________
psst... A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. (John 13:34)
I like bass. Give me some.

I've only been through Lyon, and that was someyears ago. I knew it was sort of Frnce's "second city," and I loved the panorama of the traditional city.
I never dreamed that Lyon was going so big, so high. I believe they have a Métro system in addition to the tramway. Is this the case. Love to see more about the city, road, and transit infrastructure.